Facing Bella Muerte
by Groves of the Pass'd
Summary: His eyes, oh his eyes are the most beautiful jewels I have ever seen in the world. Those eyes of death. A beautiful death. The eyes of an impure mortician, an Undertaker with a dark-colored history. I love it.


**Yeah.**

**I haven't finished many, many stories, and yet I'm starting another. **

**Undertaker from **_**Kuroshitsuji**_**.**

**"Facing **_**Bella Muerte**_**," by Groves of the Pass'd. **

London is a bleak place in the winter. The streets are icy, people are bundled up in many layers, their breath a swirling mist around their cold-cracked lips. Winter was a time of snow and cold and lifelessness. Farmers in the fields away from the towns always have problems with the crops, with the livestock. City dwellers have a lack of food. People grow sick. People die.

People die and bring business to the retired Reaper, the city Undertaker. They are picked up by his carriage hearse, and brought to his shop. Undertaker strapped them to tables and embalmed them with his greatest perfection, draining their blood and filling them with liquid, making his customers seem like they were asleep. He dug their graves as deep as he liked, a comfortable six and a half feet. He hosted the funeral service, smiling as his customer's loved ones stood over graves with tears dripping down their cold faces in grief.

And Undertaker loved his job. He loved the scent of embalming chemicals, the scent and sight of death. Once he was the greatest Reaper of all, but the job grew tiring, dealing with the dying. He grew to watch their life reels with boredom, and finally, he got the reputation to quit and not be frowned upon. He became an Undertaker, and that's where his interest lay from then on. Besides, those Grim Reapers were all silly men that ran with gardening tools and watched people pass. That's what Undertaker was once, a man that carried a huge scythe and slashed people in ways that made their blood fly high into the sky.

But those days were over, even though the Shinigami, new and old, came to him for advice, to bother him, or even just to talk and laugh together.

But today Undertaker had many "guests" come to his shop. All of them dead from either frostbite or starvation or even both. Undertaker always welcomed guests, he loved to treat them with great hospitality and dissect their organs for research and for fun.

He was quietly embalming a teenage boy in his back room, plugging his eyes and shooting chemicals into his body when he heard a loud rapping on the front door. Turning, Undertaker grinned, eager of news of another poor fallen soul. He strolled lazily to the door, opened it, letting in weak winter sunlight and frigid winter air.

Undertaker was a bit surprised to find a woman standing there in his doorstep, a woman dressed in clothes not appropriate for this weather. She wore high trousers, black with gray pin-stripes, and a simple white button down shirt with a short auburn scarf wrapping around her long, slender neck and a large black hat whose wide rim covered her eyes. Her pale skin was not blue, she was not shaking, her bare hands were not crossed under her arms for warmth.

"Good afternoon," The man greeted casually, walking back towards an empty casket and leaned against it.

"To you as well," the lady murmured, tilting her face away from Undertaker and slowly extended her arm, holding out her hand. She had a single intention, and Undertaker knew exactly what she wanted.

Chuckling lightly to himself, Undertaker grinned a great grin. He liked a lady who was fond of manners, for he himself felt he should be polite. Very gently, he took the lady's hand, a bit surprised it was warm, bowed slightly, and lightly pressed his lips against the smooth skin of the back of her palm. A formal way for a man to greet a woman.

"What a gentleman you are, Mister Undertaker," she smiled, slowing turning her head.

"I thank you," Undertaker purred, bowing his head. "What have you come to my humble shop for?"

"I have come to see your greatest tool, Mister Undertaker."

Undertaker began to feel a giggle rise in his chest, but he quickly stifled it when the guest suddenly looked up at him, full in the face. His smile quickly turned into a straight line when he saw the woman's eyes. Very chestnut shaped, with sparkling emerald irises that were ringed with a strange mustard-gold. And she was wearing glasses. A simple black rectangle frame. There was no mistaking her eyes. This lady was a Shinigami.

Undertaker was surprised at first, then amused. He had not seen a female of his kind since he was but a boy, and he was a boy such a long, long time ago. The only Shinigami he had met since that female had died had been only male from then on.

But right here, right now, a female Shinigami was standing right before the Undertaker.

And it made his heart beat rapidly.

And it made his interest suddenly perk.

And it made him want to reach out and stroke her face and take away her organs.

It made him want to study her organs.

The organs of this strange female Shinigami that gazed at him with challenging eyes.

"My greatest tool?" Undertaker questioned, tipping his head to one side. "Whatever could you mean, my dear?"

"Well, isn't it obvious?" Muttered the female, sitting gracefully upon a closed coffin and flipped her hair. "Fine. I'll intimate you. You were once a legendary Shinigami, now retired." She smirked. "You must still have it, for you are still one of us. Shinigami blood still and forever will run through your veins, Mister Undertaker."

Undertaker cackled, then, without even a wave of his arm, his huge grim Reaper scythe appeared, clutched in his left hand. It was beautiful and silver and majestic. Deadly too. The female blinked at him in wonder.

"Hmm.." She murmured quietly, trying to stare past Undertaker's thick bangs of hair, attempting to get the slightest peak of his glasses, and even the golden-green eyes underneath. "I can imagine how you looked back when you were in my line of work. That guy Grell says you were devilishly handsome."

"Grell?" Undertaker scoffed under his breath. Then, he spoke louder, "Am I not still handsome, my lady?" He began to chuckle in that high-pitched crackling of his.

"Of course you are," The female replied. "Your scars and stitches perfect the image."

"May I inquire you about your name?"

"Marcelene," Stated the newcomer simply, tipping her head in greeting.

"Marcelene then, what is your real reason for coming to my humble shop?" Undertaker pressed, leaning forward. "I know that seeing my scythe is not the real reason of why you're here. I could see the disappointed slump of your shoulders." He got up and traced the sharp edges of Marcelene's face with his long talon of a nail. "Please do give me another hint, my lady."

Obviously, Marcelene was not the slightest bit afraid of the Undertaker's normally odd behavior, for she went and grasped the mortician's hand that was still creating smooth, invisible lines along her jaw.

"Mister Undertaker," she began, not taking her eyes off his wide, white smile. Suddenly Marcelene rolled herself into the funeral director's arms, wrapping his long limbs around her skinny frame. She rested her head on his shoulder, and almost giggled. The Undertaker was so surprised of her actions and Marcelene was delighted to feel his heart jump in his chest. "You and your clothing smell a lot like embalming chemicals," she commented softly.

"I do very much adore the scent of death," Undertaker offered in reply.

"Anyway," Marcelene continued. "What I most want from you is..." She wouldn't bring herself to say it out loud, instead she went right ahead and pushed away the thick fronds of hair that covered the mortician's eyes.

Life seemed to collect into the humble shop and then implode because Undertaker's eyes were the most beautiful eyes Marcelene had ever seen in the world. They were the color of a smoggy, hazy summer day, glinting in the light of the store but still a mix of mustard and emerald. The male Shinigami was blinking in surprise at the female's sudden actions, and a glare sparkled on the lenses of his elegant, silver-framed glasses. The face of a beautiful death.

"Poor eyesight never gives in, not even to you, Mister Undertaker," was the first thing Marcelene said as her own eyes met the mortician's. And she could not bear to look away. They were so beautiful, so ancient, and even somewhat lonely. They were eyes that had seen a lot and felt a lot. Laughed a lot and cried a little. And the narrow yet oval shapes fit in perfectly with the rest of his facial structure. Scars etched parts of his cheek, and his nose was much sharper than she thought. The hair also revealed where the long braid was attached to the rest of his silvery hair, and even part of his ear. She noticed four little rings pierced into the tough cartilage.

"Poor eyesight is the most flawed trait of the Shinigami. Unfortunately they cannot read the souls of the dying without the help of glasses. What a shame," the Undertaker replied, and this time Marcelene could see his cheeks ripple and his eyebrows rise and fall as he spoke.

"You talk as if you are not one of us," Marcelene said.

"I am not. I am an Undertaker. Notice the door mat says 'Funeral.'"

"However you can steal reap my soul with your scythe," retorted the female Shinigami, her hand still on Undertaker's forehead, his hair still parted, his face still visible. Looking at him in a whole, Marcelene noticed that this strange mortician really was very handsome.

Undertaker chuckled, his breath hitting Marcelene's nose, smelling mostly of nothing but vaguely of cookies and a sweet tea. "Yet you can easily take my soul as well." He bent his head down to whisper close to her ear. "Let me make you a coffin. Take it home and sleep in it. When you die, you will have one already made and I'll have your body."

Marcelene laughed. "Sleep in a coffin? When I'm alive?" She said it as if his words were ridiculous.

"_I_ sleep in a coffin," Undertaker snapped quietly. "It's much more comfortable sleeping in a closed dark space than in a wide, airy room." His lips parted again to reveal his shiny, white, all-smiles teeth.

"Ah, right," Marcelene recalled. "And I hear you're not a morning person."

She laughed again and released his hair, letting it fall freely in front of his face once more. Undertaker looked much more relaxed like that. "Okay then, Mister Undertaker, please make me a coffin."

"And your body?" Undertaker inquired with excited interest.

"When I'm dead."

"Ah, hahah, very well!"

Suddenly, Marcelene planted a small, delicate peck on the mortician's cheek, and as a natural response, Undertaker gently touched the spot where her lips had been. The brief kiss had sparked a sudden respect for the female, and he knew at once that he really liked her, and she liked him very, very much in return.

"Mister Undertaker, do you think I could try a coffin tonight perhaps?" Marcelene asked, her Shinigami gaze not quite glancing up to where Undertaker's eyes were.

"Why ever not?" Undertaker said, his smile returning. Undertaker was never a man of fake smiles, they were all genuine. "Choose any that you like... However the closed ones most likely have corpses in them."

In the end Marcelene chose a nice, shiny black coffin. She went inside and rested herself in the plush. It smelled new and quite like Undertaker's comforting scented skin. Undertaker blew out many of the lights, making the store dark as he closed shop.

"Goodnight, Mister Undertaker," murmured the female Shinigami as she began to close her mustard eyes.

"Goodnight, my dear," said Undertaker, returning the low murmur, his deep voice almost like a lullaby to Marcelene's ears.

He knelt by the coffin and rested his elbows against it, leaning over her form and stared at her face as she stared at his.

"I really like you, Mister Undertaker," Marcelene whispered with the hint of a yawn creeping in the back of her throat.

_And I'm liking you,_ thought the ex-Reaper, bringing his hand down to lightly brush it against her cool cheek. And then, slowly, slowly, slowly, Undertaker fell asleep beside her.

And that's how the two slept for the whole night through; the mortician caring, protecting, loving. Resting and leaning and watching over the death god's sleeping coffin.

**Undertaker's door mat really does say 'Funeral.' Most of the time it is show from up-side-down shots. **

**ahhh... I miss the good 'ol oneshot. ^^**

**Review! Review! Review Review!**


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